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- cross-posted to:
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McDonald’s has been using artificial intelligence to dynamically price menu items in the US and some global markets, according to a report by Reuters. This involves finding the “optimal price” to match what a particular store’s patrons would be willing to pay.
This fluctuates according to location, and even stores in the same city can have different cost amounts for the same exact items, according to information reviewed by Reuters. This is basically surge pricing, like with ride-share platforms, but for hockey puck burgers that have been sitting under a hot lamp.
Reuters got a look at the interface that franchisees use to access this technology and it’s pretty creepy. Messages show stuff like “your restaurant is showing MEDIUM SENSITIVITY to price” based on “customer willingness to pay in your area.” Cost differences at nearby locations can be stark. Researchers found that a Bic Mac at a Fresno, California store cost $5.69, but the same burger cost $6.89 at another branch two miles down the road. That’s a 21 percent difference.
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How do I manipulate it to lowball
WTF is even Grimace? The turd after a supersize meal?
Start stealing burgers so they know you’re not willing to pay the current price
Not that I needed another reason to avoid McDonald’s. Tastes nice, but the burgers have become tiny, and their food gives me the shits.
I don’t buy McDonal’s because the price/value equation is off. Whether it is off because they think I’m rich or because they think I’m addicted doesn’t really matter. The result is that I just don’t buy.
But if I was a regular customer, I would see unstable prices as a negative because it means, I have to research current prices first before going there. That’s inconvenient. I prefer reasonable and stable prices.Maybe, McDonald’s introduces haggling next so customers can feel like they are buying a used car when they buy a burger…
Been 5 years since I ate my last Mc Crap. Not going back ever.
There should be quotes around “burgers” in this headline as well IMO.
The text is pretty good though:
[…] but for hockey puck burgers that have been sitting under a hot lamp.
even stores in the same city can have different cost amounts for the same exact items
That has been a thing for years.
A local guy did the legwork pre-covid to price check a list of items at every McD’s in the city and found that there was a significant difference in price across the city.
The patterns he found were that franchisees were generally consistent across their own locations, and that the locations in the more affluent parts of the city tended to be more expensive.
The only real surprise was that corporate didn’t mandate exact prices across an entire market area.
How about McFuck Yourself
Isn’t this going to hurt them more than it helps them? The whole point of places like McDonald’s is I know that no matter what location I go to I will get the same food at the same price.
If I don’t know in advance how much a meal is going to cost I might as well just go to a local business since the quality will be better.
Don’t worry they will soon be instituting klarma so you can amortize your Big Mac into a 6 month payment plan.
When I’m bored, I get price quotes from Lyft and Uber to the airport. I’ll click around and look at the different tiers of service. Then I choose not to actually request a fare, and close the app.
I fly enough to where both apps probably have me as a regular airport customer, but that I’m price sensitive enough where I just won’t use their service sometimes.
I do the same with Doordash and other food apps, where I just put together potential orders to get a sense of how much something would cost if I ordered it, and then just never order it, letting that cart expire. I’m hoping this poisons their data or adds something to the price sensitivity metrics.
I also look at airfares, hotel prices, etc., a lot. It’s not for the purpose of manipulating their algorithms, as I just like to get a sense for how prices move over time. But if there’s a side effect that these variable pricing algorithms take into account people who window shop and walk away, maybe I’m helping push prices down.
If they’re gonna create a panopticon, we should fuck with their data.
Yeah, my first thought was that such a system was likely gameable.
But then my second thought was that idgaf what any of the McDonald burgers cost. The price they’d need to set to get me to “buy” them wouldn’t be economically viable for the company because I have no clue how a “pay customers to take our burgers” scheme could work out favorably for them.
The bargain with fast food was that it was shitty for you, but it was quick, cheap, and tasted good. Now it’s even WORSE for you, costs as much as an actual meal, and increasingly tastes like garbage. What exactly are people trading off now?
A burger-fries-drink is the same cost as the most amazing local shawarma and drink or the freshest ban-mi from the local Vietnamese resto.
For the price of one decently sized McDonald’s meal here in Australia (about $16) I can comfortably feed myself for a week of healthy, filling dinners, and maybe lunches too, using staple foods and in-season veg.
More reasons to not eat McDonalds. It sure seems like they are trying to shift from being a hamburger chain into full real estate company and are trying to sabotage their weaker franchises so they can cash out the properities PE style.
Every franchise is, and has been, a real estate company first.
No, corporate owns most of the stores property then leases that to franchise owners. If one wanted to liquidate some of the property they owned and downsize operations they’d have to kick out the franchise owners first.
It isn’t quick anymore either.
there was ONE McDonald’s that I used to still go to on road trips.
then the US threatened to take over my country, so ofc I stopped going to McDonald’s. I tried to make an exception for it last year because I had to pee and I figured it would be the one place actually open at 1am for me to pee and get a coffee, but nope, closed. guess they want people to piss in the drive thru
McDonald’s doesn’t even offer washrooms anymore, they have literally nothing to offer me
I keep being amazed when we go out once a month for a sit down dinner and it’s only $5 more a head than fast food.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they had some super addictive drug in there
Fat, sugar and salt can totally be addictive.
It was a late 20th century novelty symbolizing the heights of American culture and capitalism. By now much of the world has experienced McDonalds and generally fast food. Most of the developed world at least.
And soon someone will have the “Where is The Cheapest” mcdonalds app that guides them to the location that is hurting for business and has lowered their price, effectively negating the process.
Personally, I don’t see a problem with McDonalds doing this, as I am not the kind of person who would eat that crap. I had gone probably decades without going into one, but happened to on a road trip. Big ugly kiosks? Nope. I left.
I can’t see how this could be illegal. They should be able to adjust their prices any time they want. Well except after you order I guess.
Gathering data about the customers that persists, is personally identifiable, and not discoverable, now THAT should be illegal.
I don’t see a problem with McDonald’s doing this, as I am not the kind of person who would eat that crap
Okay, great, this specific case doesn’t apply to you. Thank goodness no other business will be encouraged to adopt this model and suddenly make groceries more expensive during the post-work/pre-dinner rush and on weekends.
I don’t care if they do, frankly.
Restaurants already do this: Lunch is one price, Happy Hour another, Dinner another, and then late night often yet another menu.
A business can charge whatever they want, and hopefully it will empower more food coops and consumer owned businesses.
Edit: Most of the places I like to go to, I know who works there, I know who owns it.
I wonder if touristy places will eventually get facial recognition, so that prices are much higher for tourists?
Which leads me to the part that actually bothers me, the data collection and identification. Its not the pricing itself that bothers me, its the data required to do it.
Having different prices for different meals isn’t dynamic pricing. We have menu’s because some food is more expensive than others. 2 eggs and some hash browns costs less then a hamburger with full dressings, fries and a soft drink.
Dynamic pricing is a form of prejudice that relies on a few additional data points but at its heart is no different than “hey this guy is skin color and is wearing clothing type so he must be loaded I’m going to tack on another $4 to his order!”
Now if that example above seems fine with you, change out the skin color and clothing type to something stereotypically negative and then tell me it’s not prejudice for someone to base a business transaction on those attributes (which the Supreme Court has in the past ruled is illegal to do.)
Having different prices for different meals isn’t dynamic pricing
Yes it is. Less people at lunch. More people at dinner. Less people at 4 - 6 in between. They all are different prices reflecting the different number of people that time will attract. It isn’t simply what the food is made of.
Dynamic pricing is a form of prejudice that relies on a few additional data points but at its heart is no different than “hey this guy is skin color and is wearing clothing type so he must be loaded I’m going to tack on another $4 to his order!”
I guess that’s one way to look at it. I would imagine most use cases would be: “this person is from Extremely Rich Estates”, so lets tack on an extra $10 to their order. Or this person wants their order first, so charge a premium. Welcome to tipping the bartender hard to get noticed (also dynamic pricing is it not?)
I don’t get why you want to negatively use dynamic pricing, that seems counter productive to making money, but whatever.
People in business do it all the time already: I get jobs I don’t want to do, I ask for a lot to do it. I get a job that I know will lead to more jobs, I charge less. I get a job for a wealthy person I charge more so I can do work on the cheap for someone who needs it.
Look at the end of the day I think I have been clear: its the data collection that bothers me the most. Which fits into your argument, I don’t want any personal identifiable information, or race, or address, or location, etc collected. Period. For any damn reason. THAT is what needs to be illegal. If they want to say more people come in at lunch, and the longer the line gets the more they want to charge, fine.
I’ve noticed this with their iced coffees in the past two summers. I just thought it’s because I was ordering away from my usual location.
It is a lot too, like the reuters guy was charged like 6 and 8 dollars for one of these garbage sandwhiches. I would get real food for that money.
